


La Dispute

by Ibbyliv



Series: Le Fabuleux Destin de Grantaire et Enjolras [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Amélie AU, Autumn, Break Up, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fights, Living Together, M/M, Paris - Freeform, Reconciliation, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibbyliv/pseuds/Ibbyliv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire hates how everything somehow feels in place when the first raindrops start tapping rhythmically on the window pane, blurring their vision and forming little clouds from the tangling of their breaths.<br/>Grantaire loves the colors of autumn on his palette, the sound of the leaves crushed beneath the wheels of their bicycles, and the scent of Combeferre's dusty old books, that of his childhood dreams, of misty forests and imaginary magical comrades in an ancient hidden attic.</p><p>Enjolras hates the cold, so he bundles himself up in his favorite red pea coat, the one in which Grantaire first drew him when he was still a street artist in Montmartre and drew beautiful Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau compositions for the homeless, leaving them by their pillows every midnight.<br/>Enjolras loves throwing pebbles in the Canal Saint-Martin when he's stressed. He loves the first sluggish, cloudy mornings that smell of citrus and croissants as they take their coffee by the window, Cat lazily rubbing herself against their feet. At the end of the day, Enjolras loves falling asleep in Grantaire’s arms, watching the shadows and the lights of the city peering through the grilles of the windows to dance on the dark ceiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Dispute

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse? I guess that autumn is happening and holiday's coming to an end and I'm a bit nostalgic, also I love my bed and Amélie and I'm bored. Should I apologize for the clichés idk I'm still bored.  
> [Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8aSC0VS3Ws)title is from Yann Tiersen's Amélie soundtrack and sort of inspired the whole thing.

_Les sanglots longs_  
 _Des violons_  
 _De l’automne_  
 _Blessent mon coeur_  
 _D’une langueur_  
 _Monotone._

_Chanson d’automne, Paul Verlaine_

It starts like that, Grantaire waking up and sluggishly peering outside the window, only to find that everything's gold.

It takes a blink or two of his bleary eyes to distinguish what they're reluctantly trying to embrace from the blinding summery brightness of the sunrays waltzing between Enjolras' mussed curls, of the seawaves reflecting on their skin that feels eternal, of the burning sand glistening lazily beneath their toes. No, this goldness is different, rich yet dull, sumptuous in all its suffocating darkness, it's a mixture of ochre and mustard, of rust and emerald, dead leaves scattered across the pavement, lying beneath the ancient trees they've left bare or twirling in the overcast sky, forming patterns captivating enough to never be properly captured on his dizzy canvas, incomplete without all their fragrances and the eerie music of the wind.

Grantaire sort of hates autumn and adores it altogether. He hates how it suits him, how everything somehow feels in place when the first raindrops start tapping rhythmically on the window pane, blurring their vision and forming little clouds from the tangling of their breaths. He hates just how _warm_ alcohol tastes, how clingy he feels in the darkness when his fingers are shaking around his pencil, and everything gets smudged like the clouds and that jumpy feeling that presses against the walls of his ribcage. He hates the Halloween preparations that begin mid-September, all the oblivious Parisians trying to conform themselves in a feast that isn’t theirs and helping department stores profit. He hates the pretentious routine that seems to intrude in what was previously _theirs_ , giving the stuffed metro wagons a foul smell. 

Grantaire loves the colors, the way they make love on his palette on a good day, the unexpected peaking of a sunray underneath the heavy clouds covering the sky and melting from his cigarette. He loves the sound of the wheels of their bicycles, crushing the leaves beneath them with a creaky sound. He loves the cozy little _rendez-vous_ with their friends in the little Café de Deux Musains, in Rue Saint-Michel, the wooden buttons on Courfeyrac’s perfectly tailored navy coat that comes out for fall, the still lingering tan on Jehan’s freckled cheeks, reminding him of a summer just a breath away, the flocks of color and the cheerful on Joly’s cheeks and nose when he catches the first cold of the year, and Feuilly’s deft, artistic fingers, as he knits warm bundles for all of them. He adores Combeferre’s notorious hot chocolate, that is served together with reserved smiles and grandfather cardigans, vigilant yet soothing, bespectacled glances behind heavy, dusty books that somehow smell of his childhood dreams, of misty forests and imaginary magical comrades in an ancient attic.

_Jehan hates when the Parisian catacombs are crowded. Jehan loves watching raindrops meeting each other on the window pane._

_Feuilly hates people who don’t wait for you to get out of the metro before they get in. Feuilly loves the PEZ collection he carried with him every time he moved to a new host family. Feuilly hates Bahorel. Feuilly loves Bahorel._

_Joly hates thinking that people hear him chewing his popcorn at the cinema. Joly loves rearranging his bookcase before classes begin, dusting all the books and wrapping them in glossy paper._

Grantaire _does_ love Halloween in itself, the creativity that strikes him when he gets to craft costumes in town for the Thénardier siblings so that they can peer into Bahorel’s apartment and _boo_ the shit out of him until he roars and tackles them down and ends up wrapped up in toilet paper in order to make a decent mummy, scaring Cat into hysterical meows.   

_Bahorel hates people who won’t give their seat to old ladies in the metro. Bahorel loves being in season denial and wearing neon tank tops during the fall. Bahorel hates Feuilly. Bahorel loves Feuilly._

_Gavroche hates people who don’t understand how cool pigeons are just because they see them everywhere. Gavroche loves discussing girls in school with Carmen, his lesbian spider._

_Cat hates the sneaky vet. Cat loves the ticking of the old grandfather clock ._

Summer makes Grantaire melancholic, and its end leaves him almost paralyzed like every other end that he can’t quite face, struck with the numbing realization that it didn’t smell of jasmine this year, like all the jasmines of his childhood home, that he didn’t waltz away with his sister to the music coming from his grandpa’s old, wooden radio, that he didn’t fit on his mother’s soft lap or linger against the damp, soothing coolness of her emerald swimsuit. Still, his mother visited, and that summer smelt of café à noisette and of cheap cider, tasting it straight from the bottle they bought at Monoprix, or rich and vintage, tasted from every hollow on Enjolras’ skin, tangled between sweaty sheets in some lazy, humid afternoon.

Enjolras remembers their first autumn. It was full of stress and it rained all the time. He remembers seeking for shelter in the greasy metro stations. When Combeferre was with him, he felt safe. Combeferre held a leather messenger bag and read other people’s books behind their shoulders. When he first saw Grantaire in the metro, one gloomy, rainy day, he absolutely hated him. He saw mockery in his icy blue eyes, as he observed the people behind his sketchpad. Their eyes had met for an instant, making the whole wagon tremble to the pounding of his heart that was the only thing that echoed in his ears, or maybe it was just the bumpy electric rails.

Enjolras hates autumn, when it gets colder and colder every day, and all he can do is dread the night for the secret spectators of the city, blind musicians sleeping in subway platforms, entire families curled up under bridges and on the corner of a bench. That’s why he volunteers at the homeless shelter, and he hates how he can’t do more _and more_ … Enjolras hates the cold, so he bundles himself up in his favorite red pea coat, the one in which Grantaire first drew him when he was still a street artist in Montmartre and drew beautiful Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau compositions for the homeless, leaving them by their pillows every midnight. Enjolras hates the return to his frantic routine, having to wake up in godforsaken hours of the morning with stale breath, pillow marks on his face and hair all over the place, even though Grantaire calls him _ange_.

Enjolras loves throwing pebbles in the Canal Saint-Martin when he's stressed. He loves the windy gardens and all the perfect leave shapes that make Combeferre smile contentedly to himself, and the scratching of a pencil when he wakes up every morning, knowing that it’s him being sketched, the curve of his lips as he snores and the sigma of his back as he wraps himself around his awoken lover, wild curls of hair falling dangerously over blue, concentrated eyes. Enjolras loves Grantaire’s callused, charcoal smudged fingers, as they caress the black and white piano keys, peeling on the edges, the lazy nights when they doze off, tangled together before the blue dim light of the TV, Édith Piaf coming muffled from Mme Thiboldaux’s apartment.  He loves the first sluggish, cloudy mornings that smell of citrus and croissants as they take their coffee by the window, Cat lazily rubbing herself against their feet. At the end of the day, Enjolras loves falling asleep in Grantaire’s arms, watching the shadows and the lights of the city and the cars, peering through the grilles of the windows to dance entwined over the dark ceiling.

He hates how Grantaire gets sometimes, the bitter aftertaste that lingers on his lips together with the stuffed clouds in his blue eyes that block him out. Grantaire hates himself when he storms out the door, when the first heavy drops start falling on him like a symphony, note after note, drowning inside his chest as he takes a deep breath, trying to make it stop hurting, standing numb with his boots in the middle of rain puddles as cars horn for him to walk out of the way.

He walks across the Seine, his fingers trailing the edge as he lights a cigarette after a long time, watching the silver tendrils dance their zombie dance before his eyes, moving yet not quite alive, a shadow of what he once used to cherish.

Grantaire needs to talk so he goes to Jehan’s. He finds him outside the building, under a gigantic, ridiculous ladybug umbrella. Courfeyrac hates umbrellas, but he’ll never say no to sharing one with Jehan. Grantaire feels lonely and sick. He drinks with Bossuet but, once he’s downed his poison he seeks solitude again, and he seeks it in wine. He ends up at Éponine’s. There’s something dizzying about the red lights and the tacky posters on her wall that makes him feel like home.

_Courfeyrac hates people who won’t let him pet their dogs. Courfeyrac loves the sound of his Polaroid as She tries to capture the radiant sound of his friends’ laughter, capturing the glint in their eyes instead._

_Bossuet hates wool that itches on beanies and berets. Bossuet loves the feeling of Joly’s stiff muscles untensing beneath his fingers._

_Éponine hates the rain as it flows from a bridge. Éponine loves the rain as it glistens on the pavement._

The sky is stuffed with clouds and Enjolras can’t breathe.

Combeferre places a cup of tea with cinnamon in front of him and it’s only the gentle clad of the plate he can hear. Combeferre is silent as he takes a seat on the couch opposite him, observing him behind his glasses, because Enjolras is shaking.

They have always been lonely without each other, defenseless and angry at a world that never functioned quite right, only in completely different ways. Enjolras had run away with his tiny bike when he was eight because he wanted 'to be free'. Grantaire had smoked his first cigarette when he was fourteen for the same reason. The only thing – and _everything_ – in which they found meaning was caring, maybe caring a little too much, and in ostensibly incompatible ways. Enjolras cared with his voice and with his fists, with his sharp words and with a heart that was aflame, openly sharing his revolutionary tasks with humanity, struggling to convince her to save herself. As for Grantaire, caring had hurt so much, that he'd decided to purge his being from it, to never let anyone know how he ached, so he did everything unceremoniously, hidden beneath a veil of darkness and solitude.

_Combeferre hates people who judge him for eating Nutella out of the bucket. Combeferre loves freeing every tiny insect that gets trapped into his bathroom, no matter how many legs it’s got._

Marius and Cosette visit that night, together with Cosette’s round bump. They bring along movies and popcorn and Marius’ wide, dreamy smile. Autumn is a good look on them, or maybe baby Fantine is.

Cosette casually mentions that she’s talked with R. He’s alright, he’s spending some time with Gavroche, trying to help Éponine deal with everything now that school has started. Enjolras should probably call him.

_Cosette hates people who’ll find excuses to not hire her even when she’s much more qualified than most men, just because she’s a pregnant woman. Cosette loves dipping her toes in the Seine when it’s cold, feeling them numb for a while before she buries them in her fluffy socks and high heel boots._

_Marius hates people who confuse sexism with chivalry and claim that the latter is dead. Marius loves trying to help tourists whose language he doesn’t yet know._

_Petite Fantine hates when strangers touch the bump and make weird sounds when she kicks them away, because she knows they make Papa uncomfortable. Petite Fantine loves when Maman swims in the sea, and is all floaty and light, and her voice comes out bubbly and soft._

The grilles brush softly together and Enjolras’ heart skips a beat. He shuts his eyes tightly, trying to hold the prickling tears from streaming down his cheeks. He remembers of his childhood, of the imagination he’s now bereft from, the worlds in which he used to wander, only to be brought back to reality by the broken sweetie jar, the foul smell of swimming trunks that he’d forgotten in the closet for a while and the loneliness of the naughty step. He imagines Grantaire’s intoxicating scent, the warmth of his breath upon his nape his lips soft on the crook of his neck, the fresh baguette underneath his arm and the flowers that haven’t yet withered on the kitchen window. He knows it’s just Cat, peering through the grilles, and he exhales a shaky breath.

He hears steps atop of the sound of the rain, and turns around with his heart on his throat. Grantaire is standing there, pale and soaked to the bone, dripping water on the cold, mosaic floor, his eyes clean of everything that shadowed them. Cat is nevertheless rubbing herself against his calves, her eyes moving suspiciously between the two of them. Grantaire takes a deep breath, like the small, guilty child with the smudged fingers and the tousled curls that Enjolras always saw, seeking freedom in the entanglement of their fingers.

“Je suis revenu.”


End file.
